AI’s craving for data is matched only by a runaway thirst for water and energy
by John Naughton | The Gaurdian
One of the most pernicious myths about digital technology is that it is somehow weightless or immaterial. Remember all that early talk about the “paperless” office and “frictionless” transactions? And of course, while our personal electronic devices do use some electricity, compared with the washing machine or the dishwasher, it’s trivial.
Belief in this comforting story, however, might not survive an encounter with Kate Crawford’s seminal book, Atlas of AI, or the striking Anatomy of an AI System graphic she composed with Vladan Joler. And it certainly wouldn’t survive a visit to a datacentre – one of those enormous metallic sheds housing tens or even hundreds of thousands of servers humming away, consuming massive amounts of electricity and needing lots of water for their cooling systems.
Square Enix is Minting Hundreds of New Final Fantasy NFTs On Enjin Blockchain
by George Tsagkarakis | EGamer.io
It’s no secret that one of the most respected gaming studios, Square Enix, has expressed its intentions to usher in a new wave of gaming by using blockchain technology to offer real property rights to gamers worldwide.
Back in 2022, Yosuke Matsuda, CEO of Square Enix, wrote an insightful open letter delving into the benefits of blockchain and the risks that exist when it’s not applied intelligently.
Since then, Square Enix has used Enjins Efinity stack to mint Final Fantasy NFTs, Immutable X to sell NFTs for its Japanese game Shi-San-Sei, and sold three major IPs (Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, and Thief | Legacy of Kain) for 300$ Million to THQ Nordic to invest in blockchain gaming.
The State of Spatial: 10 Trends Driving XR
by Mike Boland | AR Insider
The new year always brings pundit predictions. Unfortunately, most are general takes with no teeth nor quantifiable accountability (e.g., “XYZ will be big this year”). To avoid that watered-down approach, we aspire in our predictions to have concrete outcomes such as sales figures.
With that discerning eye, a worthwhile set of predictions recently crossed our desks. Former colleagues and partners at AWE and Super Ventures, Ori Inbar and Tom Emrich, reunited to break down their 2024 outlook. The discussion ended up being much deeper than just predictions.
If you weren’t able to catch the event, we have you covered. We’ve summarized each of the ten trends that they tackle, as well as the full event video embed. Check out both below, with some of our related trends sprinkled in for solidarity. If you have time, we recommend the full video.
🌙 NASA - Best Photo from Last Week
Hubble Uncovers a Celestial Fossil
This densely populated group of stars is the globular cluster NGC 1841, which is part of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way galaxy that lies about 162,000 light-years away. Satellite galaxies are bound by gravity in orbits around a more massive host galaxy. We typically think of the Andromeda Galaxy as our galaxy’s nearest galactic companion, but it is more accurate to say that Andromeda is the nearest galaxy that is not in orbit around the Milky Way galaxy. In fact, dozens of satellite galaxies orbit our galaxy and they are far closer than Andromeda. The largest and brightest of these is the LMC, which is easily visible to the unaided eye from the southern hemisphere under dark sky conditions away from light pollution.
The LMC is home to many globular clusters. These celestial bodies fall somewhere between open clusters – which are much less dense and tightly bound – and small, compact galaxies. Increasingly sophisticated observations reveal the stellar populations and characteristics of globular clusters are varied and complex, and we have yet to fully understand how these tightly packed groups of stars form. However, there are certain consistencies across all globular clusters: they are very stable and hold their shape for a long time, which means they are generally very old and contain large numbers of very old stars. Globular clusters are akin to celestial ‘fossils.’ Just as fossils provide insight into the early development of life on Earth, globular clusters such as NGC 1841 can provide insights into very early star formation in galaxies.
Text credit: European Space Agency (ESA)
Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
Barbara Bickham
Barbara Bickham
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